Published by Douglas Messerli, the World Cinema Review features full-length reviews on film from the beginning of the industry to the present day, but the primary focus is on films of intelligence and cinematic quality, with an eye to exposing its readers to the best works in international film history.

Larissa Shepitko | Восхождение (Voskhozhdeniye) (The Ascent)

Larrissa
Shepitko’s 1977 film, The Ascent
begins with the punctuated crack of gun fire between a group of Russian
partisans and a Nazi death squad, and ends in a mad cackle of laughter by one
of the work’s major figures. In between Shepitko paints a terribly bleak but
visually beautiful landscape of woods and snow of Belorusia.

Having run out of food and the energy to
move forward, the men, women, and children of the partisan unit send two of
their best soldiers—the powerfully athletic Rybak (Vladimir Gostyukhin) and the
crack artillery officer, Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov)—on a voyage to a nearby
farm to bring back food. Rybak leads, while the slightly sickly Sotnikov
follows. They reach the farm—where, evidently, Rybak had once been hidden and
made love to the farmer’s daughter—only to find it burned to the ground, obviously
destroyed by a German unit. Accordingly, the two are forced to walk through the
brutal landscape to a nearby town, where they encounter an elderly headman (Sergei
Yakovlev) who they perceive as a Nazi collaborationist. They kill a lamb, but
leave the traitor to live.

As they attempt to make their way back to
the woods where their unit awaits them, they are again spotted by a roving
German unit. Rybak, despite his burden of the lamb, makes it to the woods, but
the weaker Sotnikov is shot and wounded in his leg. Trapped in the open, he
attempts to shoot the approaching Germans, but finally, points the gun at
himself, so that if they come to get him, they cannot capture him alive.

At the last moment, Rybak returns and in a
stunningly dramatic tussle with body and nature, pulls Sotnikov to safety. The
director follows this with a long scene in which Rybak—about to leave the near
frozen Sotnikov in order to find a place of safety— reveals, through tender hugs and
kisses, his brotherly love for his fellow soldier, promising to return for him.
This beautiful scene is both chaste and slightly homoerotic, an astounding
mixture of pure human love that is seldom expressed in such a genre.

Rybak spots a small cabin nearby and drags
his friend into it. But there, suddenly, they discover three small children
waiting for the return of their mother. When the mother, Demchikha (Lyudmila
Polyakova) returns she is angry and defensive for their intrusion, fearful of
the results; but when she perceives that Sotnikov is wounded, she grows more
sympathetic. At almost the same moment, however, a jitney of Nazi soldiers arrives, on
the lookout for the two Russian partisans. Apparently their leader has previously
had sex with Demichikha and stolen her pig, as he again forces his way into the
cabin. Hiding out in the attic, the Russians are forced to watch what will
surely be a gang rape, until Sotnikov, who has been coughing up blood for some
time, can no longer control his silence. The soldiers are discovered and, along
with Demichikha are carted away, the three children left behind to starve.

Until that moment the viewer perceives
this film mostly as a well-made war story about heroism and terror. But through
the delicacy of Sheptiko’s images and the intense scrutiny of her character’s
faces, we sense that something else is being told in this tale. At one moment
as the three are being taken away to a Nazi camp, we see Rybak jumping from the
cart in an attempt to escape, only to be immediately shot. A second later the
cart moves forward with Rybak still aboard. The image has, clearly, been a
somewhat surrealist-like intrusion into Rybak’s thinking, a quick blink of his
imagination.

And as the group, beginning with the
tortured and dying Sotnikov, begin to be interrogated by a Nazi interrogator, Portnov
(Anatoli Solonitsyn), we suddenly begin to see this formerly weak ex-math
teacher become incredibly strong, a least with regards to his inner conscience.
Refusing to reply to any of the interrogator’s question, even taunting him, Sotnikov
quickly grows in stature before our eyes. If Rybak seemed to be the hero of the
previous scenes, we now rethink our perceptions of this man of loyalty and
faith. Despite his condition, he even endures through the torture of a branding
iron in the form of a Russian star imposed across his chest.

When Rybak is called to the interrogator,
by contrast, he answers most of his questions straight-forwardly. Although
refusing to give out information on the whereabouts of his unit, he nonetheless
seems almost ready to collaborate, particularly when Portnov offers the
possibility that he might make a good German policeman.

By the time the two, along with Demichikha,
the elderly headman whom the two have previously encountered, and a young girl
who has been in hiding, are brought together, we suddenly perceive these previously random figures,
beautifully shot in frieze in the dark cellar, as an emblematic-like portrayal of
figures surrounding Christ. Rybak is now determined to save his life, while
Sotnikov is prepared to die. Demichikha, who we now perceive as a kind Mary Magdalene,
is still furious about being taken from her children, but expresses her love of
the young girl, a kind of Mary. The headman, whom we now discover was not a collaborationist,
but an agent for a large partisan group stationed nearby, becomes both a Peter
and a doubting Thomas in one, praying for enlightenment. Sotnikov, looking
moment by moment, more like a Russian Orthodox embodiment of Christ, asks Rybak
to help him live until the morning, when he will claim that he alone committed
the acts of which they accuse all the others, perhaps saving his companions.
The struggle with nature has been converted from a battle with the natural
elements to a struggle within; if Rydak was the hero within the snowy
landscape, it is Sotnikov who proves himself as the victor in the battle of his personal
nature.

When morning comes, his confession does
not work on the cynical Nazis, but Rybak’s acceptance of Portnov’s offer, frees
him, while the others are taken out to be hung, Rybak steadying Sotnikov as he
stands on the box which, when kicked away, ends his life.

The holy ones are all hung, Rybak
congratulated for being a “good rabbit.” As the headman’s wife passes the
Russian soldier, she hisses what we have now known for some time: “Judas,
Judas, Judas.”

As the German soldiers turn to celebrate
their dinner, Rybak enters an outhouse, attempting twice to hang himself by his
belt. He fails.

Called in to join the others, Rybak
perceives that the camp gate has been left open, the cold snow of freedom
beckoning him. Might he run? He begins to laugh, painfully and madly laughing
because he now knows that for him there can no longer be any freedom possible.